so here's the scoop. i am minding my own business working on my laptop downloading ATB and Kim Leoni on limewire and the entire Clubland cd series on bit torrent. one thing is pissing me off thogh, it is that i cannot find more than 2 of Kim's songs on Limewire, so i decide to research it and find out how many she really has. so i go to my start menu and listed as the default internet program up there with outlook is firefox, so i click on it being sure to avoide the Idiot Explorer icon just pixels below. as it turns out Windows doesent care that i clicked on firefox because it opened up 40+ instances of IE, they poped up so fast that i had to resort to the ALT+F4 buttons to defeate it. after that i went to the icon that i placed on the desktop and waited but it actually opened firefox that time.
and as it turns out, Kimmy only has 2 songs that i could find, "Again" and "Medicine", both amazing songs.
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
I don't think anyone hear wants to hear about you illegally downloading through P2P and BitTorrent, really.
That's called a virus...you get those from illegal downloading sometimes....can't always trust the content of the file you're getting.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
thats why I use Ubuntu for my downloads and scan them with AVG for linux and ClamAV
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
and why are you using limewire when there's frostwire?
Lead, Follow, or get out of the way.
Zoop
2. it very well could be a virus, not all virus scanners find everything, and people that make/distribute the viruses are pretty darn good at hiding them. sure Windows is odd and does some stuff we don't like, but its never Windows alone that causes 30+ IE windows to open. I've fixed some of my friend's PCs, and my own PC that had this issue a while back, all of them had what was called the Vundo virus.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
There are new viruses being descovered every day. If you are gonna download illeagal stuff off limewire, at least be sure it has more than one source.
Simplifying daily life through technology
2. [snip] average windows freakout.
I would like to point out as many other people here that this does not happen on its own. I am a XP only user and am attempting to switch to *nix as a means of expanding my career but will still use XP at home for the foreseeable future. Having literally built thousands of machines and maintained even more than that, I have never seen what you describe as "normal" except when the machine is completely hosed with Spyware and Viruses.
When downloading questionable executables, you always use more than one or two scanners. IF i ever do that (and it is rarely these days) I always wait about a week or so after downing and then up it to jotti or virustotal and have those services scan it. MOre than 2 scanners and they will have already had whatever viruses may have been in it identified.
Long term solution, stop downing illegally. You WILL get caught. Not a matter of, but when. Besides, limewire and such are so like 4 years ago... I stopped doing the kazaa and limewire years ago.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say will be exaggerated or mis-quoted and used against you.
"*nix"!!!! Is Linux/Unix a curse-word?
To stay on topic, Sergentsiler please stop stealing music & Get Thunderbird or SeaMonkey.
self.path = path if self.path == None else self.path
Drop the Li and U and add * to represent both...
self.path = path if self.path == None else self.path
i'm slowly switching to linux
Wix XP sp3 on my main computer with a second running both Suse 10.3 and 11A3 and a thrid as a FreeNas storage box and a few virtual machines of different linux distros
and so far i like suse 11 the best but it's buggy still.
but as i learn more about linux the less i use windows
sorry this was supposed to be a reply to BvF7734
Lead, Follow, or get out of the way.
it isnt a virus because i have had this freakout on xp computers that have never had contact with the internet or any other means of infection.
Xp is great but LINUX, has a lot of good stuff behind it.
Zoop
I think I see what you are talking about... The computer is bogged down for one reason or another like you just started it and it is not finished loading or you are doing something and the computer is not as responsive at that time. So what happens is you click the link. Expecting it to pop like it does when not doing anything... Problem is, your patience is not as long as the delay is so you click again and again and again... Causing the computer to cache the clicks each and every one of them and process them as it can causing the flood of how ever many times you clicked the link. That is a glitch but nothing that can't be solved by realizing your error and correcting your habits accordingly. Some computers (yes even the fastest and latest) will do this with no rhyme or reason. I have seen it on fresh builds and on old computers that needed to be rebuilt.
Although the virus/spyware side of the cause is the more common iteration of the click cascade that you describe. If each window was blank or contained the same site then that is a click cascade. If it is many different sites then it is virus/spyware related.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say will be exaggerated or mis-quoted and used against you.
just clicked once, and i clicked on firefox in the first place!
Zoop
I still insist it's a virus. The only time behavior like that is "normal" for windows is if the mailto: action is disabled and the user clicks a mailto: link.
http://www.nirsoft.net/articles/mailto_bug.html
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
and yet it is firefox and not thunderbird so that doesent work! it is a classic windows bug, i am thinking that since i clicked on firefox and IE freaked out, it has something to do with my registry.
and until someone gives me the name of the virus(s) that can cause internet explorer to freak out after clicking on firefox, i am insisting that it is a bug in windows.
Zoop
and until someone gives me the name of the virus(s) that can cause internet explorer to freak out... This sounds like a combo of a few different trojans. Here are some I found:
1)Man, this one is rare, but I'm sure you have this. JS.WindowBomb - Symantec.com
Also Known As: JS.WindowBomb, JS.Trojan.Loop, JS/WinBomb, JS.Loop, JS/Loop, definitions dated November 4, 2004 or earlier may detect this threat as JS.Trojan.WindowBomb
"JS.WindowBomb is a Trojan that opens a very large number of Web browser windows. In some cases, the mouse stops working and the time on the system clock keeps changing."
The virus is easy to contain and remove, but symantec reports that this threat is extremely rare:
- Number of Infections: 0 - 49
- Number of Sites: 0 - 2
The fact that you have a virus that is so rare tells me that you probably are loaded up with the most notorious viruses as well.
I googled this virus and had a lot of hits that were people talking about it in discussion forums, and their descriptions were very similar to yours (minus the blabbing about pirating stuff). It's a fairly harmless trojan; It wont do anything to your computer unless you run it, by opening up a browser like IE. Apparently it is just a simple script that was written by some bored kid.
2)Now for your "listed as the default internet program up there with outlook is firefox, so i click on it being sure to avoide the Idiot Explorer icon just pixels below..." problem. This sounds a lot like a variation of the threat commonly known as the "USE INTERNET EXPLORER YOU DOPE" virus. Basically, what it does is try to prevent the user from using firefox. Here are some links:
Virus in Firefox - MozillaZine
talk about this virus - MozillaZine
other forum thread
All the security companies have been silent on this issue, as most AV software will not remove it; it must be removed manually. There are instructions for this floating around on google, if you do in fact have it.
Jeez man, I gave you 2 specifics, but this really looks to me like a combination of several viruses, not just one. What security software do you use? It probably isn't detecting it because it is outdated, or the company does not send sigs for that specific virus. I quote ZachHurdock above:
"not all virus scanners find everything, and people that make/distribute the viruses are pretty darn good at hiding them".
So true. I just cannot see this problem being something to do with windows or the registry. Please get youself a good AV product and update it regularly, and if you are going to pirate software, at least scan it for viruses first!
most likely what i have got, i even have the changing clock thingy but that only happens when i connect to the internet over my hardwire (since it is a laptop.)
thanks, i will try to run a full scan later and see what comes up!
Zoop
js.windowbomb one shouldn't be too hard to get rid of, but it depends on what other viruses you may have. I don't know which AV products will pick it up; but Norton will for sure since it was on their site.
By the way, did you get the "six buttons" loop in IE as well? That's another thing the virus does, I didn't mention it in the first post. It basically shows a message in IE with 6 buttons, and says when you click on them it will destroy your computer, when it actually just goes into a loop and opens more IE windows.
Good luck cleaning you computer.